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jewelry/metals

Born in a small town in Mexico in a humble family i learned to make small scorpions with wire when i was a kid just for curiosity and for fun,4 years ago it came to my mind to create more insect using the wire and after creating a few more insects friends and family will start to like them and i started doing it as a hobby but after a couple months and seeing that people liked thema lot i decided to go further and let my mind and imagination go currently i have more than 70 different sculptures that i can make with wire and i can make basically anything im not very good at expressing my self with words i will just let my work do the talk i love art and i hope one day i can use all my time just to do what i love wire sculptures

Self taught metal sculpture using only Harley and American motorcycle parts to create unique sculptures. Started from his own bike build in 2006 using left over parts good enough to go on a bike but now worth selling, I decided to have some fun and create a statue towards donating to a childrens benefit, to this day this piece still comes back every year and has raised over $9000. With overwhelming responses towards my first piece, I decided to set some goals.... first to raise $50,000 for Veteran and Children benefits, second to see how long it would take and third to make something so beautfull it would make an entire benefit cry. Reached all these goals last October in 2012, $64,000 raised, took 6 1/2 years to do so as well as made a piece that teary-eyed everyone.. The Orndorff Cross! Since October have been published world wide by Easyriders magazine as well as V-Twin, so with I accomplishing my goals, I set new ones..... out to do this for a living as well as creating bigger and better pieces. I just recently came back from my first major show down in Daytona Florida at bike week where I sold Internationally as well as had 14 different magazines shoot my work with all magazines telling me they had never seen anything like it, the crowds response was overwhelming with nothing but positive comments and I was an incredible draw the entire event. I am in the process of working on LIVE performances where I go into Motorcycle dealerships and turn their garbage into one of a kind creations towards the charities of their choice figuring the GO GREEN aspect would be a plus as well as not leaving behind what got me to this point, the charaties. NEVER wanting to stop putting my good foot forward, just wanting to do it on a larger scale... if my art can raise $64,000 locally, I wonder what it could do world wide! I am also doing commision pieces towards companies, weddings and whatever else comes my way in hopes that one day... I will accomplish my new goals.

Fine craft artisan and owner of both Tangora Designs and local gallery in Urbana, called "Wind Water & Light Gallery"

Undergraduate from Southern IL University in fine art Photography and Communications. Started Tangora Designs in 1989. My focus is on up-cycling discarded items and creating new unexpected uses for them. I specialize in jewelry but have been known to do some assemblages, furniture restoration, and hand made paper objects as well. I've been making "Cultured Beach Glass" jewelry and accessories for nearly 30 years. Many of those years my main income was from art and craft shows and wholesale to galleries around the country. This past year I have expanded my designs to include paper, wood, and plastic. From Art Deco to Steam Punk, my designs are proven to bear the distance of time. Once you try them you will be hooked. A few years ago my Mom started showing signs of dementia so my days of traveling to art shows needed to be reexamined. During this time we started a brick and mortar gallery called "Wind Water & Light" in Urbana, IL. My husband and I have run the gallery for 7 years. We represent around 200 artists local and national. I am excited to use Etsy to gather my clients from the days when we would show my works in areas far and away from Champaign - Urbana. We give a little something to charities every month whether it is a gift certificate for WWL or an angel that I made. You will find ear rings both symmetrical and asymmetrical, (and yes we make clip-ons), angels, mermaids, necklaces, bracelets, and rings. Now and then I make assemblages and paper bowls up cycled clocks from maps and plastic bottles. All up cycled and mixed up! Many people think the name is ANGORA but it is actually Tangora, my maiden name. But Angora kind of fits the softness of the tumbled beach glass. I majored in photography back when there wasn't any such thing as digital. I breathed too many raw chemicals during this time and had to find another discipline for myself. Walking down the beach one day I picked up a piece of beach glass. How beautiful I thought and how can I make this in Illinois? The rest is history!
Oh, I LOVE TO SWIM.
Won a few awards for my works. If you are interested, ask me and I'll tell you.

I was born and raised in Chicago. I attended Columbia College where I received my BS in Fine Art. Upon graduation I taught preschool, ages 3 and 4, for four years at the McGaw YMCA of Evanston. It was then that I realized I wanted to become an art teacher, so I enrolled in the graduate program at Illinois State University where I received my MS in Art Education and Art Therapy. Upon graduation, I worked in an Alzheimer's unit organizing art activities and therapy groups for one year. In 2004 I started teaching art to grades 9 – 12 at Iroquois West High School in Gilman, Illinois, where I am presently employed. I am in my ninth year of teaching, and recently received national certification. I have also been a member of the Illinois Art Education Association and the National Art Education Association since 1998.

I currently show my paintings at Aroma Cafe in Champaign, Illinois, Beads and Botanicals in Urbana, Illinois, and at Po Boys BBQ restaurant also in Urbana, Illinois. I show my work regularly at Artists Against Aids, and have participated in shows held at Indi Go Gallery, The IMC, and at The Coffeehouse in Normal, Illnois.

Lisa is a certified music educator and semi-professional performer, having sung locally with local performers Dave Cooper, Steve Meadows, Carnivale Debauche, and The Curses. She has also worked as a music director with the Champaign Urbana Theatre Company in their recent productions of AIDA and THE PRODUCERS.

Billie Theide holds a MFA from Indiana University in Bloomington and a BFA from Drake University in Des Moines. She is the recipient of a Visual Arts Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts and five Artists Fellowship Grants from the Illinois Arts Council. Her creative work has been included in over four hundred fifty invitational, competitive, group, and one-person exhibitions. Billie Theide's work is in the permanent collections of the de Young Museum of the Fine Art Museums of San Francisco in California; Museum of Arts & Design in New York; the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, DC; Evansville Museum of Art in Indiana; Museum of Decorative Arts in Prague, Czech Republic; National Museum in Wrocław, Poland; Porcelain Museum in Riga, Latvia; Civic Art Gallery in Panevėžys, Lithuania; Sonny and Gloria Kamm Collection in Los Angeles; and Sanford M. and Diane Besser Collection in Santa Fe. She is a Distinguished Member and Past-President of the Society of North American Goldsmiths. Billie Theide is Professor of Art in the School of Art + Design, the James Avery Endowed Chair in the College of Fine and Applied Arts, Chair of Studio Arts, and Chair of Crafts at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Georgia Morgan designs one-of-a-kind jewelry, accessories and functional art for the home. She has lived in Urbana since 1970, and has been making jewelry since 1990. She has studied metalsmithing and polymer clay techniques with masters of these arts in international workshops.
Images of her work have been published in The Crafts Report and 400 Polymer Clay Designs (Lark Books). Her one-of-a-kind adornments, hand-crafted from polymer clay, gemstones and metals are available locally at Wind Water and Light in Lincoln Square, Urbana. Examples can be viewed, and custom pieces ordered, at www.georgiamorgan.net.